Gravel Concedes Libertarian Nomination

Although Mike Gravel hasn’t been in the news a lot recently (which isn’t saying too much, as he wasn’t in the news often to begin with), he didn’t become a “former” presidential candidate until just this past weekend. The former senator from Alaska, who wasn’t able to win enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee, threw his hat in for the Libertarian Party’s nomination, but party members chose Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman, instead. “I just ended my political career,” Gravel said at the party’s convention, according to the New York Times. “From 15 years old to now, my political career is over, and it’s no big deal.”

Going into the 2008 presidential primary season, Gravel had raised just $521,000, putting him at the bottom of the Democratic heap. His top contributing industries included retirees (who gave him $24,800), miscellaneous business ($16,200) and computers/Internet ($12,800). Gravel had contributed $47,600 of his personal funds to his own campaign by the end of 2007. So far the Federal Election Commission has sent Gravel three notices for failing to file any campaign finance reports this year. But, apparently, withholding information from the government wasn’t enough to win over the Libertarians.

Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. To request permission for commercial use, please contact us.